Unsolved
by Red Bess Rackham
Summary: The reset worked... or did it? Catherine and the team investigate a series of especially strange deaths, where the victims all coincidentally happen to have been on Oceanic flight 815 from Sydney to Los Angeles. Oneshot. Post S5 Lost Finale.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own a dang thing and ain't makin' a dang dime.

**A/n:** No, I don't think any of the Losties live in or even near Vegas. Just go with me on this. Let me know what you thought of this one - it was an idea that hit me out of nowhere today, begging to written and was too fun to let go. Flashbacks are in italics. I did my research for this puppy (THANK YOU Lostpedia!) And this is a _long_ one, but hopefully worth it. Enjoy!

* * *

**Unsolved**

She hit the bomb with a rock and nothing happened. Her strength was failing and she knew there was no way she would make it out of this.

"Come on…" she cried, striking it again and again. "Come on!"

With one last blow, something happened. Everything went white.

* * *

Boone opened his eyes with a jolt, surprised he'd fallen asleep on the plane. He never fell asleep on planes. He looked around, feeling strange, as though he'd slept for days instead of minutes. He'd been dreaming something strange, too, but couldn't remember what it was. The harder he tried to remember, the harder it seemed to be to focus on the images flitting away from his mind.

"'Bout time." Shannon flipped the page on her magazine loudly. "I thought I was going to have to drag you off the plane myself."

"Where are we?"

"Moments from landing." She replied.

Boone blinked the last sleep from his eyes as the pilot came over the speakers.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, we are going to be starting our descent into the Los Angeles area…"

* * *

_41 Days Later_

Boone came into his room brushing his teeth and began flipping through his closet for suitable clothes. He grabbed a black suit jacket and an expensive blue shirt to go with it, thinking about the last time he'd worn it, on the plane back from Sydney with his favorite leather jacket.

He sighed as he thought about the impending dinner with his mother and Shannon. Since bringing Shannon back from Sydney, things were… awkward. He loved her and she still tried to treat him as nothing more than her rescuer, or guard dog, who came whenever he was called. Something was changing in her, though. She was getting better, softer, slowly becoming the Shannon he'd first fallen in love with. He didn't know what was causing the change, but guessed it probably had something to do with her latest boyfriend – who was actually a decent person, unlike the scum she usually dated.

Tonight he was biting the bullet and was going to be with Shannon and his mother in the same room. His mother had always had this cold grudge against Shannon, which Boone didn't understand, but he had finally put a stop to it. He'd had a very long overdue and intense conversation with his mother on the weekend about how she treated Shannon, which had eventually ended in his mother's tears and acceptance that she'd indeed been horrible to Shannon. Tonight was intended to have his mother apologize, show some kindness and hopefully be the first step to them actually having a mother-daughter relationship together.

He hoped. They could also end up getting into a nasty argument which would have them leaving the restaurant early.

He rinsed his mouth and put his toothbrush away. A moment later he was buttoning up his shirt when incredible pain overtook him. He didn't know what was going on – _flashes of a yellow plane, someone yelling his name, blood_. He collapsed to the floor, crying out and clutching his leg. What was going on!?

Then he felt like he couldn't breathe. He was on his back and swirling in and out of consciousness.

_Let me go, Jack_.

The thought and the memory came out of no where.

_Jack was going to take his leg. Boone couldn't let him. He was letting Jack off the hook for the promise he'd made – the promise to save his life. _

_ "Tell Shannon…"_

_ He could feel the life leaving him and struggled to get the words out before he was gone._

_ "Tell… Shannon…"_

_ He never did.

* * *

_

When Catherine and Nick processed the scene, they saw virtually nothing out of order. The vic, one Boone Carlyle, twenty-three years old and found dead in his bedroom by his nearly hysterical mother, looked like he'd been getting dressed to go out that night, a story his mother confirmed. Foul play was not immediately suspected, as there were no signs of forced entry, a struggle, or anything, really.

Catherine promised the mother they would do everything they could to understand what had happened as Nick took pictures.

* * *

"So, what do we have?"

"Oh, you're going to love this." Doc Robbins said with a small laugh. He gestured to man on the table before him. "COD? Internal injuries."

Catherine gave the Doc a funny look. "Injuries from what?"

"Well, his organs and ribs are severely damaged, suggesting a car accident or something heavy falling on top of him. He had a lot of internal bleeding, a partially collapsed lung, the bones in his right leg are shattered and believe it or not, evidence of a very recent head trauma."

Catherine looked down at the body and back at the Doc, sure she had to be missing something.

He gave her knowing smile. "No, you're not missing something, Catherine. He has absolutely no external indication of these injuries. His leg, for example, looks completely normal. I took some x-rays, however, which show what I told you about. I would say it's absolutely impossible for him to be so badly injured without a single bruise or scrape if I hadn't done the autopsy myself."

"What could possibly cause this?"

Doc shrugged unhelpfully. "You're the CSI."

"Thanks."

* * *

_7 Days Later_

Shannon wiped her eyes with her latest Kleenex and tossed it onto the growing pile. She hadn't really gone out of the house since Boone's death – aside from the funeral. She still couldn't believe he was gone. It was an idea that wouldn't compute in her head: Boone, gone.

Sabrina, her step-mother, had wanted to help comfort Shannon. They could grieve together for the man they both loved in different ways. Shannon wasn't sure about the change in Sabrina and wanted to welcome it, but couldn't swallow it right now. Not while she was drowning in the knowledge that Boone was gone forever and no one seemed to know how or why.

The coroner had said his death was inconclusive and had been unable to (or unwilling to) elaborate further, only saying that everything was still being investigated. If only she could know why or how he died, maybe then she could feel a little closure.

She looked at the picture on her nightstand and felt another wave of depression and loss wash over her. It was an old picture of her and Boone on her birthday. She was laughing as he put whip cream on her nose, wearing that deep red t-shirt of his she adored, looking vibrant, happy and full of life. It made her wish she'd taken her chance with him, knowing full well he loved her. Sure, she'd been wasted when she went to his hotel that night, but she knew that the alcohol had only given her the courage to feel what she'd been trying not to feel for so long.

With a heavy sigh, Shannon climbed off her bed and was headed to the kitchen to make herself some supper, ignoring the fact that it was already rather late in the evening, when something happened. There was a slicing pain in her gut that stopped her in her tracks. She didn't know what was going on – _rain, yelling, blood. _She cried out, her knees buckling as the pain spread.

_Why don't you believe me? I need you to believe me._

The thought and the memory came out of no where.

_ The whispers rippled through the trees, mixing with the noise of the rain. She turned around and saw the boy in the woods, putting a finger to his lips._

_ "Do you see him?"_

_ Sayid nodded._

_ "Walt!" She called and ran towards the boy, Walt. Walt took off, deeper into the jungle and she followed._

_ "Shannon!" Sayid ran after her, scared of what he'd just seen._

_ BANG._

_ Something was wrong. Her legs weren't working right, her stomach was on fire and things were getting fuzzy. She stumbled backwards, trying to tell Sayid that something was wrong._

_ He was staring at her horrified and suddenly her legs gave way and she was tumbling into him. He caught her, shock freezing his handsome features. She tried to speak, to tell him that she loved him back – realizing she hadn't said it back moments before – and that something was wrong, but she wasn't sure what. And she saw blood – was it hers?_

_ But she never got the chance.

* * *

_

This time it was Catherine and Greg who processed the scene. The vic, one Shannon Rutherford, twenty-one years old, was found sprawled in her living room by the mother of their other vic, Boone Carlyle. The poor woman was beyond hysterics, having lost her son and step-daughter in the same week. They'd cleared the woman in the case of Boone's death, but she'd become the prime suspect in Shannon's because Catherine knew that in her business there was no such thing as coincidence.

The scene was eerily like Boone's, with no signs of absolutely anything out of the ordinary and a distinct lack of blood and injury. Catherine didn't have any words to offer Mrs. Carlyle as the poor woman sobbed uncontrollably in the bedroom of Shannon's apartment.

* * *

"Hey Doc, how's it going today?"

"Ah, not too bad Catherine, thanks for asking."

"How's our latest vic?"

"Our second mystery victim of the week, one Shannon Rutherford, coincidentally the step-sister of our other vic, Boone Carlyle."

"Does she have the same weird injuries as Boone?"

"No, actually. Hers are… weirder."

"Weirder than dying of internal injuries and not having a single scrape or anything?"

"Weirder as in I found a bullet in her. She died of a shot to the stomach. And it was very recent. But look at this," Doc proceeded to gently slide the sheet back so Catherine could see the girl's stomach – which was completely unblemished. "There's not a trace of it."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I wish I were. I have nothing to offer you, other than the bullet." Doc held up a small evidence bag which contained the cleaned bullet from Shannon's stomach. "Good luck."

* * *

"Two family deaths in one week. That's rough." Greg shook his head sympathetically.

"What's worse is we still have no idea what killed them." Catherine sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Boone died of severe internal injuries and Shannon was shot. Yet neither them look as thought anything happened to them. What are we missing here?"

"That's what we've got to find out." said Greg. "And this is definitely climbing the list in weirdest case I've ever seen."

"Tell me about it." Catherine agreed.

* * *

_43 Days Later_

Charlie picked up his guitar and began strumming out various chords, trying to wrap his mind around the melody forming in his head.

Ever since he'd gotten back from Sydney, he'd thought seriously about what Liam had said and about how empty his life was as of late. He'd pick up random girls using his DriveShaft fame, he'd use, and he'd be strung out for days on end. He was angry, moody, irrational and killing himself little by little.

He'd stared at himself in the mirror for a long time, feeling rather than seeing flashes of dreams he'd had, where he wasn't addicted to heroin anymore. Where he didn't need it to feel good or needed or relevant. And then he'd dumped his stash.

It was a constant uphill battle, but somehow he kept doing it. He'd gotten past the worst stages of withdrawal – that had been absolute hell. He'd cut ties with his dealer, moved to a new apartment and eventually made a call to a rehab clinic that gave him much needed help to finish kicking the habit. He was officially 82 days clean as of midnight.

With a small smile, he strummed his guitar louder with practiced fingers. The best thing about kicking the drugs was that he now had more money, more control of himself and he was writing music again. God, it was freeing. Not that any of it was easy, as he still craved it, still had nights where he almost slipped. Somehow, flashes of those dreams of his stuck in the recesses of his mind and gave him a strange sense of determination and courage.

Charlie began to lose himself in his music, playing the notes that formed in his mind, flowing through his fingers like water. And then something happened. His chest was tight and he realized he'd been holding his breath, though he didn't know why. He didn't know what was going on – _a grenade shattering a window, water swirling around him, cold. _His eyes snapped open as he felt as though he was underwater, yet he was standing in the corner of his completely water-free music room. He opened his mouth, trying to breathe, trying to fight the panic of feeling like he was physically drowning and his mouth felt full of water.

_Not Penny's Boat._

The thought and the memory came out of no where.

"_Charlie!" Desmond hit the glass with a fire extinguisher to no avail._

_The water cascaded in at an alarming rate and Charlie watched it come, knowing this was it. This was how he died. Suddenly he realized he hadn't gotten the message to Desmond yet and pulled the permanent marker he'd written his list on from his pocket and frantically scrambled to make a legible message on his hand. The water continued to pour in._

_As the water level rose over his head, he caught one last breath and went below it to press his hand to the window so Desmond could read the message on his hand: Not Penny's Boat. He saw Desmond's lips move as he read it and knew that he understood._

_He looked at Desmond a moment longer before letting himself drift backwards. He'd saved them. They were going to be rescued. Desmond's visions about Aaron and Claire being safe would come true now that he was about to die. And Desmond would be reunited with Penny someday too, because Charlie had stopped him from coming into the communication room._

_The water pressure pressed on him and his lungs screamed for him to breathe. Charlie made a cross on his chest, ready for death._

_And it came.

* * *

_

When Catherine arrived at the scene, she immediately suspected the man on the floor, one Charlie Pace, twenty-eight years old, found dead by a band member concerned his friend hadn't shown up for practice, had died of an overdose. A musician with black fingernails too often meant some tortured artist who couldn't take the world anymore and took his or her own life.

Yet they found no pill bottles or anything that could explain how he'd died, so her next suspicion was poison. She couldn't believe that this was third completely unexplainable death in just a few months. She and the team were no closer to solving the Carlyle or Rutherford deaths as it was. And she refused to entertain the idea that it was all the work of aliens, as Hodges had jokingly suggested the other day, but if this case turned out anything like those other two, she silently decided it might actually be worth looking into.

* * *

"Don't tell me. This guy also died some weird mysterious way that can't be explained."

Doc sighed. "Unfortunately… yes."

Catherine sighed as well, tired of the way things had been going as of late. Three completely strange unexplainable deaths were three too many. "What is it this time?"

"He drowned." said Doc simply.

"Drowned?" She asked incredulously. "In his apartment, probably while standing and playing a guitar?"

"His lungs were full of water and his body was saturated in a way that only someone who drowned very recently could be." Doc shook his head. "I really wish I could explain these. They're keeping me up at night."

"That makes two of us."

* * *

"So we've got a guy with severe internal injuries, a girl who was shot, and a guy who drowned, all with absolutely no sign of these things having ever happened to any one of them and no way to connect them."

Nick rubbed the side of his face. "That sure seems to be the case."

"There's _got_ to be a connection. Somehow." said Greg.

"I just want to know who or what the hell is killing them and how." Catherine slumped in her chair. She could feel a headache growing in her temples. "How can you get shot and not have a hole in you?"

"How do you drown in a dry apartment?" Nick asked.

"How do you end up looking like you got crushed on the inside with not even a little bruise?" Greg questioned.

The trio stared down at the vast array of pictures on the table, trying to see _something_ to connect the three cases.

"I ran those tests a second and third time like you asked me too, although it was hardly necessary," Hodges failed to completely hide his annoyance as he entered the room. "Tox reports on the brother and sister are negative, but the rock star had traces of heroin in the hair sample you gave me. I'd say he hasn't used in a long time. They're all clean as whistle."

Catherine sighed. "Thanks Hodges." She'd been hoping she could have somehow ruled their deaths out as accidental suicides, perhaps drug related, though she still wouldn't have been to explain the bullet in the girl. This got them no closer to finding out what happened to them.

"I'm telling you," Hodges added. "It's aliens."

Nick snorted.

"At this point, I'm almost willing to believe anything." Greg said resignedly.

Catherine silently agreed.

As Hodges exited the room, Archie entered. "I may have finally found something helpful to connect our three mystery vics." He said.

The other three in the room perked up immediately.

"We're listening," said Catherine.

"Well, I searched through everything. And I mean _everything_. Phone records, doctor's appointments, places of employment, credit cards reports – everything. The only thing I could find was this," Archie explained and then handed Catherine several pieces of paper. "All three were on the same return flight from Sydney about three months ago: Oceanic 815."

Catherine looked over the sheets of paper, depicting copies of the tickets that their three vics had each purchased.

"So… they were all on the same flight. Does that have anything to do with how they died?" Greg looked between the others.

"Unless everyone else on that flight starts dropping dead because of mysterious reasons, I doubt it." Archie replied.

"Thanks Archie." Catherine acknowledged him with a small smile. To Greg she said, "See if you can get a list of everyone who was on that exact flight and we'll find out if there's been anymore strange deaths."

* * *

As it turned out, there were. There had been at least two more, as far as the CSIs could find. Both women, both also found with bullets inside them and no entry wounds like Shannon Rutherford. Everyone was stumped and completely at a loss to understand why any of this was happening or what it had to do with the flight from Sydney.

They resorted to interviewing everyone from the plane but absolutely nothing was helpful. One person remembered seeing Boone and Shannon fighting prior to the flight, a flight attendant remembered the musician, Charlie, as being very agitated during the flight and locking himself in the bathroom during a bout of turbulence.

The investigation dragged on. Eventually with absolutely no evidence, no leads and literally nothing to go on, the team was forced to pack the case away in the filing cabinet marked _Unsolved_.

**-end-**

* * *

**A/n:** In case that wasn't clear: the reset/hydrogen bomb/Faraday's plan worked in that it put them all back on the plane to L.A. - they never crashed. Except it didn't completely work, and the universes still overlapped in a weird way, meaning all the Losties who died, did and still will die. The two females who also died at the end there were Libby and Ana. Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your toughts! Reviews are like oxygen. :D


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